Officials warn of life-threatening storm surge and flooding as evacuation orders in place in some parishes
Francine made landfall in south Louisiana on Wednesday as a category 2 hurricane as officials warned of life-threatening storm surge, flooding and 100mph winds.
There were evacuation orders in some parishes, as communities braced.
Continue reading...An area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico is moving landward, and is expected to bring intense rainfall
Francine could soon be the next to be ticked off the list of Atlantic hurricane storm names this week. On Friday, a broad area of low pressure emerged in the Gulf of Mexico, designated as Invest 91L. An “invest” – a shorthand for “investigative area” – refers to a region of atmospheric disturbance, characterised by low pressure and thunderstorms, and is closely monitored for its potential to evolve into a tropical cyclone.
Invest 91L is anticipated to encounter more favourable environmental conditions as it progresses northward over the coming days, meandering along the eastern coasts of Mexico and Texas. The National Hurricane Center has now labelled this as a potential tropical cyclone, and it is expected to reach hurricane status before reaching the Gulf coast of the US. It advises that hurricane and storm surge watches will probably be issued on Monday for coastal parts of Texas and Louisiana, with the impacts expected to be felt from Tuesday night.
Continue reading...The system by Saturday had been dousing Texas and Louisiana with heavy rains for days
A tropical depression may form next week in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center.
In a forecast on Saturday afternoon, the NHC said that an area of low pressure had formed over the Bay of Campeche in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico. It had been producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.
Continue reading...Lawrence Hecker, 92 and diagnosed with dementia, will be evaluated again to see if he is capable of defending himself
A court-ordered psychiatrist evaluated self-acknowledged child molester and retired priest Lawrence Hecker for a third time on Thursday, declaring him “fragilely competent” to stand trial on rape and kidnapping charges.
New Orleans criminal court judge Benedict Willard stopped short of declaring Hecker competent to stand trial and assist in his own defense but kept a 24 September trial date in place.
Continue reading...Joe Cornelius Sr, 82, and Keisha Miles, 31, were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday
An 11-year-old boy has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after the fatal shootings of a former Louisiana mayor and his daughter.
In a press conference on Tuesday, police chief Jared McIver of Minden, a small town in north-west Louisiana, said that at about 6.30am on Sunday police responded to reports of a shooting inside a house on Austin Street, according to local reports.
Continue reading...Attorneys for Lawrence Hecker, charged with raping teen in 1975, urge judge to declare him incompetent to stand trial
Retired Catholic priest and self-acknowledged child molester Lawrence Hecker’s trial on rape and kidnapping charges – scheduled for 24 September – could be significantly delayed yet again after a medical report on the 92-year-old’s mental health has been filed in court.
A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation diagnosed Hecker with dementia, saying he has “good days and bad days”, according to a statement from his defense team. Defense attorneys Matthew McLaren and Eugene Redmann issued a statement Tuesday urging judge Benedict Willard to declare Hecker incompetent to stand trial.
Continue reading...Lee Eagan said he lacked prior experience, failed to familiarize himself with rules and suffered cognitive decline as case expenses soar to $40m
A US government official is questioning the soaring legal fees paid by the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans after the volunteer managing the organization’s four-and-a-half-year-old bankruptcy admitted under oath to a stunning lack of qualifications for his role. Lee Eagan, a local businessman, testified in early July to having never previously policed the costs of a bankruptcy as well as failing to familiarize himself with the rules for that kind of proceeding.
He also swore – in a separate series of earlier depositions – to grappling with substantial cognitive decline after a severe car crash nearly two years beforehand.
Continue reading...Louisiana’s Jeff Landry was defending a law requiring display of text in all public schools starting next year
The far-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, has told parents who don’t want the Ten Commandments hung in up classrooms across the state – as now required by law there – to tell their children to “not look at them”.
The Republican’s remarks came at a news conference on Monday defending the mandate, about two months after Louisiana became the first state in the country to order the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.
Continue reading...Truck driver rescued baby near where the child’s four-year-old brother was found dead; the mother is now in custody
A Texas truck driver is being praised for rescuing a one-year-old boy who was seen crawling along a busy highway after surviving on his own for two days amid weather from Hurricane Beryl.
Reginald Walton, a driver for DHL Supply Chain, spotted the infant near a section of Interstate 10 in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, near the state’s south-western border.
Continue reading...Human rights groups also back filing which aims to block state’s new law forcing public schools to showcase text
Several Louisiana families backed by human rights groups have lodged a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state’s new law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments.
The suit was filed with the US district court in Baton Rouge on Monday at the start of what is expected to be an epic legal battle that could end up before the US supreme court. Christian nationalists have been itching for this fight, hoping to destroy the country’s longstanding separation of church and state.
Continue reading...Law passed requiring text to be displayed in every public school classroom, although lawsuits against it are expected
Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by the Republican governor, Jeff Landry, on Wednesday.
The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities. Although the bill did not receive final approval from Landry, the time for gubernatorial action – to sign or veto the bill – has lapsed.
Continue reading...Tropical storm due to form in Gulf of Mexico, adding to extreme weather as north-east and midwest bake
Potential Tropical Cyclone One – a slow churning system of low atmospheric pressure in the Gulf of Mexico – was badgering the Texas coast but had not fully developed, meteorologists said on Wednesday.
The storm, which will be named Tropical Storm Alberto when it forms fully, is set to unleash powerful winds, heavy rain and flood threats across the entire southern US, Mexico and Central America. Storm-force winds, which stretch more than 400 miles (640km) from the storm’s center, are already affecting southern Texas.
This article was amended on 19 June 2024 to correct a quotation from Bill Nye.
Continue reading...Governors say president has ‘done nothing but attack American energy’ and urge end to US fossil-fuel rules and regulations
Republican governors gathered in the fossil-fuel rich state of Louisiana on Monday to rail against the Biden administration’s climate agenda and lay out plans to “unleash American energy”, alarming community advocates and climate experts.
“President Biden has done nothing but attack American energy,” said the Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, who led the Wednesday press conference.
Continue reading...First-of-its-kind bill on mifepristone and misoprostol passed state legislature and is expected to be signed into law by governor
Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage on Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.
Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.
Continue reading...Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children
Longtime New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker received a special honor from the Vatican nearly 25 years ago despite having confessed to molesting children. Then, for another two decades, church leaders in the city strategically shielded him from law enforcement and media exposure – while also providing him with financial support ranging from paid limousine rides and therapeutic massages to full retirement benefits, according to his own, previously unreported testimony.
A sworn deposition Hecker gave in private in 2020 shows exactly how high-placed Catholic church officials in New Orleans let him keep his elevated position for years, even after they had been advised to oust him from the clergy and – much later – publicly acknowledged that he was a child predator.
Continue reading...In unearthed deposition, Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times, but still provided damning details of decades-long predatory behavior
The Guardian and CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana have obtained a long suppressed, eight-and-a-half-hour deposition of a 92-year-old Catholic priest charged with physically overpowering and raping a boy in a New Orleans church in 1975.
Taken in 2020 as part of a civil lawsuit demanding damages from him and the church, clergyman Lawrence Hecker provides in the deposition the most complete account yet of how the US’s second-oldest archdiocese spent much of its recent history taking extreme measures to keep the public from finding out about his abusive past. The questioning – which the church has fought in court for years to keep hidden – also reveals steps the city’s last four archbishops took to help him avoid accountability for decades.
Continue reading...Yolanda George, mother of Christopher Gilbert, calls on police to make arrest after incident in Louisiana in April
The family of a 26-year-old Louisiana man who has brain damage after a friend allegedly pushed him into a lake despite him being unable to swim is calling on authorities to deliver them justice.
Christopher Gilbert’s family’s pleas came after he nearly drowned on 14 April while at a lakefront restaurant by Lake D’Arbonne in the northern Louisiana town of Farmerville.
Continue reading...Police arrest more than 200 students at UCLA as law enforcement clears camp at Dartmouth, arresting more than 90 students
More than 2,000 people have now been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses in recent weeks.
Police arrested more than 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total past 2,000, according to an Associated Press tally.
Continue reading...Rejection by three-judge panel fuels new uncertainty about district boundaries as state prepares for congressional elections
A new congressional map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected on Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.
The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.
Continue reading...Retired Lawrence Hecker, 92, charged in New Orleans, has memory loss and should be re-evaluated at later date, report finds
A 92-year-old retired Catholic priest charged with strangling a teenager and raping him in a New Orleans church in 1975 has short-term memory loss that prevents him from assisting in his defense, according to a team of forensic psychiatrists whose findings could influence whether one of Louisiana’s most prominent cases of clergy abuse is ever tried.
In a report which has not been publicly released but was reviewed Tuesday by WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, the psychiatrists said the priest – Lawrence Hecker – should not be tried for now on rape, kidnapping, crimes against nature and theft charges until he is re-evaluated later.
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